Waking Her Tiger Read Free Page A

your team will handle his luggage. I wish to see where that would be.”
    She cocked her head at the subject change. “Very well. Please, come this way.”
    She started on a genuine tour and showed him how they treated the luggage as well as the special-handling section. When she finished her tour, she walked him through the route the king would take and was surprised that he took the investigation seriously. Back at the baggage office, Mary Alice was having coffee with Aggie. The guard was stoic and standing near the door.
    From just outside the door, Maddy whispered, “So, if you are the king’s security, who is he?”
    Suran smiled, “Mary Alice’s bodyguard. When she is out on the king’s business, she has to have a guard at all times.”
    “Why?”
    “She is my niece and her mother is a woman of tremendous influence. Capturing her daughter could put that influence at risk.”
    “Oh. Right. Sure.”
    Before they entered the office, he flicked his fingers and a richly detailed business card flicked out. “If you change your mind about the Crossroads, call her. Mary Alice is a very good transporter.”
    She took the card, and he inclined his head before gathering his two companions. They disappeared in a shimmer of light and the scent of cinnamon.
    Aggie looked at her. “What was that about?”
    Maddy tucked the card into the neckline of her coveralls, and she shrugged. “I have no idea. I guess the fey are as weird as they say.”
    “Right, well, Mike is struggling with the current outbound. Go and help him.”
    Maddy chuckled and left her aunt to her paperwork while she headed out to toss a few dozen bags around.
    Nothing like baggage handling to blank one’s mind.
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    She flicked the card in her fingers for the thousandth time.
    Her father looked at her and jerked his head. They rose to their feet and left the rest of the family to their dessert.
    “What is it that you want for your future, pet? You are playing with that card like it is a dagger.”
    She put it in her pocket and sat in the wingback chair near the fireplace. “I don’t know what to do.”
    Her father sat across from her as he had a dozen times in the last year while she explained her refusal to go for any promotions at work. She had turned down her aunt’s job when airport management had offered it to her and kept from being turned into shift supervisor. Her reluctance to advance in her job had concerned her parents.
    “Think about it. There is nothing here that can bring you to the next level. You cannot fit in the burrow, and your mother and I have been worried about your chances at having a family.”
    Maddy brought her head up and stared at him. “What? What do you mean a family?”
    He smiled and leaned forward. “I see how you look at the little ones. You want your own, but the men in the town are petrified that you are going to eat them. I know you try, but we see how you look at us when we are all wearing out beasts.”
    She felt her skin go clammy. “I would never act on that.”
    “What? That you are a predator and we are prey? Since the day you first shifted, we knew that you would be faced with a decision. A choice has been offered to you...it is time to make it.”
    Maddy winced. She had spent her entire adult life trying to blank her mind to the future, and now that future had arrived to lure her into a situation, she was not prepared to deal with. She should have been prepared for it, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do.
    Her dad reached out and took her hands. “Call the transporter. Listen to your beast. If she finds someone she wants, you will know it, just as your mother and I knew it. Our beasts wanted what they wanted, and we were along for the ride.”
    Maddy chuckled. “Mom says she got used to it.”
    “As did I. Now, make the call. Your mom has your bags packed already.”
    She was startled into laughing, and he grinned, perking up as his kind always did when they heard